How much methane are swine barns actually producing? … and how can that be reduced?

Wednesday, January 29, 2025

How much methane are swine barns actually producing? … and how can that be reduced? Metadata: How much methane are swine barns actually producing? … And how can that be reduced? On-farm living lab research is looking for answers. TAGS: livestock,living lab – ontario,swine,dairy,farms,methane,emissions,manure,pork,dr. andrew vanderzaag, agriculture and agri-food canada’s science and technology,central experimental farm,brad de bekker,yorkland farms

On-Farm Living Lab Research Is Looking For Answers

By Lilian Schaer, For Livestock Research Innovation Corporation

You can’t manage what you can’t measure. You also can’t take meaningful action if you don’t know where you’re starting from – and it’s that lack of ground-truthed science which is often a source of frustration for farmers when policymakers set arbitrary targets or goals for the industry to work toward.

That’s certainly the case when it comes to reducing methane emissions from livestock production. How much is actually being produced, and how much should the reduction be? What are the most effective solutions to create that change that will also be practical and affordable to implement on farm?

This is the impetus behind a Living Lab – Ontario project that is taking a deep dive into reducing methane emissions from liquid manure storages on swine and dairy farms.

It’s been estimated that methane emissions from manure account for around one million tonnes of CO2-equivalent emissions in Ontario, which adds up to a significant portion of the carbon footprint of the province’s pork and dairy production.

The good news is that manure storage is a prime opportunity for emissions reduction that can be achieved in the short term.

“The methane emissions from manure are an area that can be reduced, so that’s a good thing,” explains Dr. Andrew VanderZaag, a research scientist in Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada’s Science and Technology Branch who works out of the Central Experimental Farm in Ottawa.

“As much as we know there are emissions, we don’t necessarily know exactly how much is coming from actual farms in Ontario. Methane is produced by microorganisms too small for us to see and the gas itself is invisible and odourless,” he adds. “We are looking to understand what, and when, and how much we are starting from, and looking at options for how to reduce it.”

An additional consideration that is particularly relevant to pork producers is the issue of under-barn storage. Manure stored outside is subject to weather conditions. With methane emissions from outdoor manure storages happening in the warm summer and fall temperatures, reduction activities could be targeted during the summer months.

However, notes VanderZaag, not enough is known about emissions patterns from under-barn storage. Liquid manure underneath a barn will experience different temperatures at different times of the year, so work needs to be done to determine how that also impacts methane production.

“We need to understand the conditions in real manure storages in Ontario – like manure temperature and degradability of carbon in the manure, for example – to ensure baseline emission estimates are accurate,” he says.

Biodigestion, for example, is an engineering solution that collects and uses the gas, but it’s not one that is feasible or affordable for many Ontario farms.

Another way of approaching the problem is looking for ways to reduce methane production in the first place – by understanding how the microbes, called methanogens, work and figuring out how to slow down their activity, for example.

This could mean adding compounds that favour other microbes in the manure and would essentially outcompete the methanogens to either reduce their activity or delay it to a later time of year when temperatures are cool enough to prevent methane production.

“Mitigation strategies that have been successful at small-scale need to be tested on farms so we can find out what works and how to make it practical at farm-scale,” says VanderZaag.

His lab trials have shown some dramatic impacts from the mitigation strategies his team will be testing on-farm, including the potential to almost completely stop methane production.

“We are talking about things that can change the pH, which will make the methanogens inactive for a while, or adding in oxygen, which will have a similar effect; these are the types of things we’ve tested in the lab,” he says.

In previous studies in small tanks, for example, his team found that adding 1.4 litres of sulfuric acid per tonne of manure one time early in the summer reduced methane emissions by more than 85 per cent. Other additives, like gypsum, have also been effective in the lab.

“These are things we’ve been testing in the lab in incubators at different temperatures using manure samples from 10 different Living Lab (participant) farms,” he says. “Now, we are working together with farmers to see how these mitigation options can be scaled up on working farms.”

This year, the research team has installed sensors on one swine and one dairy farm that, over several years, will measure the volume of methane emissions and when they are happening throughout the year.

The first year, which started in 2024, will serve as a baseline for methane emissions, and this information, combined with outside temperature readings, will be used to develop a prescription of when additives should be used and for how long in each region.

Four other swine farms and four other dairy operations are also part of the projects. On those farms, researchers are installing in-storage sensors for manure depth and temperature as well as collecting manure samples for chemical analysis and incubation in the lab to determine how much methane each is producing. This information will be used in a model that will estimate methane production.

Yorkland Farms, just north of St. Thomas, is the host of the swine farm sensor system. The 300-sow farrow- to-finish farm is owned and operated by the de Bekker family, who also crop 1,100 acres of corn, soy and wheat in rotation.

“I had expressed interest that if I could be involved with any projects that would be of value to the industry, I’d be happy to contribute – and now, knowing what the project is, I couldn’t be happier,” explains Brad de Bekker. “Making improvements doesn’t always have to be difficult or expensive.”

The farm, which doesn’t have any other swine farms close by, has an outdoor, round liquid manure pit as well as under-barn storage, making it an ideal research site. Thanks to the methane-detecting infrared lasers that were installed in early June, the research team has already learned that the bulk of the emissions were not coming from the outdoor pit, but rather from underneath the barns – which VanderZaag believes could be significant for the pork industry.

“An outdoor storage will naturally not produce methane for six to seven months of the year because it is too cold, which means producers can potentially focus their mitigation strategy on only the four to five months of the year with warm temperatures, making it more economical,” he says.

Under-barn storage, by comparison, could require year-round attention, but could also have lower overall emissions because the temperatures don’t get as hot as they do outdoors.

More will be known by the project’s end.

“What is relevant for farmers is that we will have actual measurements for swine operations in Ontario that can be improving the estimates that are used and ground-truthing the emissions estimates out there,” adds VanderZaag. “It’s really a great opportunity that we have here. We have technologies that let us do these measurements, we are able to share information, and we have this program where farmers are willing and interested in testing things out.”

For de Bekker, changing on-farm practices is just part of keeping up with evolving industry standards; but at the same time, he likes to be ahead of the innovation curve. The family installed an injector on their manure tank, for example, and has built a wetland on a marginal piece of land.

“If there is something that you can say with certainty reduces methane emissions, or keeps carbon in the manure, and is economical, I think this project can make a difference,” de Bekker believes.

Living Lab – Ontario is funded by Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada with matching industry contributions from several organizations, including Ontario Pork and Dairy Farmers of Ontario.

Living Lab – Ontario is a five-year innovation project that brings together farmers, organizations, researchers, and other experts to co-develop, test, and evaluate beneficial management practices that address climate change challenges in livestock and cropping systems. BP

Livestock Research Innovation Corporation is funded in part by the Sustainable Canadian Agricultural Partnership (Sustainable CAP), a five-year, federal-provincial-territorial initiative. This article is provided by LRIC as part of its ongoing efforts to report on research, innovation, and issues affecting the Canadian livestock industry.